Beowulf Critique

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Beowulf Critique Beowulf is an Old English heroic epic poem written by an unknown author sometime between the eighth and early eleventh century. In 2007, Robert Zemecki developed it into a movie. The film does not do the poem justice because many things were left out and added in into the movie. Because of this, the film lacked proper explanations. In the film, the characters where not portrayed correctly. For example, in the poem, Grendel is portrayed as this ruthless demonic beast. In the film, Grendel is portrayed as this childish monster. By doing so, it took away a lot of the fear that was supposed to be felt when Grendel appeared. At one point in the film, the audience was supposed to feel sympathetic towards Grendel because of his pain from hearing the loud noises coming from Herot. However, in the poem, I felt no sympathy for Grendel whatsoever because he wasn’t a childish monster, he was the ruthless demonic beast he was supposed to be. Another example is Wilglaf’s role. In the poem, Wiglaf played a huge part because he is this brave warrior who was Beowulf’s right hand man. In the movie, Wiglaf only had a small role which doesn’t make sense because later on, Wiglaf becomes the King of Geats. Overall, there are many differences between the movie and the poem. The movie did not accurately portray the poem. It did not do the poem justice. If I had watched the movie beforehand, I would not have wanted to read the

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